Despite the high-flying adventure, futuristic tech, and super-powered conflicts at the heart of the Avengers franchise, Marvel has worked pretty hard to keep its series grounded in some version of our own reality: all its fantasy, tech billionaires, and shadowy government operations have a ring of truth to them. So perhaps it shouldn’t be all that shocking that when it came to crafting his character, T’Challa, for Captain America: Civil War, actor Chadwick Boseman took inspiration from history. Boseman spoke with Vanity Fair to promote Civil War’s Blu-ray release and touched on those historical inspirations, what he really thinks of his costume, and what to expect from Ryan Coogler’s upcoming Black Panther film.

T’Challa is the leader of a fictional African nation, Wakanda. But Boseman didn’t let the fantasy of that location deter him. Building on the accent he learned for Message from the King (which just had its TIFF debut) while shooting in South Africa, Boseman worked with Marvel dialect coach Sarah Shepherd to create something that was rooted in Africa but unique to the fictional Wakanda. “We listened to [Jomo] Kenyatta, listened to a lot of [Nelson] Mandela, young Mandela. But I didn’t want to copy them, either,” Boseman says. “I wanted to make sure that I took some things from them.”

Boseman says he was concerned Marvel fans wouldn’t understand his line readings if his accent was too thick, and even considered abandoning any attempt at an “authentic” African dialect. “At one point, I thought that he wouldn’t have an African accent. But I felt like that would be wrong, because Wakanda has never been conquered. If he had a British accent or a French accent or anything other than it clearly being African, that would convey something that is not true to what Wakanda is supposed to be.”

Courtesy of Marvel

Boseman still had one more challenge standing between him and being understood by the audience: that full mask. (It’s a valid concern: just ask a post-Bane Tom Hardy.) Thanks to voice-over work and C.G.I. (any time you see Boseman in the full suit, you’re probably looking at a special effect), T’Challa came through loud and clear. But Boseman nevertheless had his reservations about the suit, which is a little more extreme than some of the other Avengers looks. Asked what he thought of the costume at first, the actor paused, laughed, and let out a protracted, “I meeeeeann.”

Courtesy of Marvel

That said, Boseman should perhaps be grateful about the final result. (An earlier design was much moreveiny.) In fact, he goes on to praise the look of the costume as “an amazing piece of art,” citing the “African traditions” and “samurai” and “ninja” influences “inside the ornaments on the mask and on the suit.” But once he put the whole thing on, Boseman admits, he wasn’t “a fan of that process, in terms of how it feels.”

Fan or no, Boseman will be back in the suit as T’Challa for director Ryan Coogler’s take on the character in 2018’s Black Panther. It’s early days yet, so Boseman couldn’t speak too specifically about the project, which boasts a starry cast including Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, and Danai Gurira. But he said that if you’re looking for a primer on what to expect, Marvel has already helpfully provided one in the form of author Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2016 run on the Black Panther comic.

It’s not always true that the current print edition of a Marvel character informs that character’s on-screen depiction. (In fact, the current book versions of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America are completely different people/genders/races than those that appear in the Marvel films.) But according to Boseman, Coates has had a massive influence on the upcoming film. “Not to say that it will follow the exact plot,” Boseman cautions, “but you definitely can tell that Ryan is reading Ta-Nehisi, and I’m reading Ta-Nehisi, and the producers are reading Ta-Nehisi. If we didn’t read what Ta-Nehisi is writing, we would be foolish.” Coogler is co-writing as well as directing the upcoming film.

Coates’s book follows a T’Challa who sees his right to rule Wakanda threatened and undermined. (That dynamic will likely play out on-screen with Jordan as Erik Killmonger, T’Challa’s rival.) Boseman says his take on the character is informed by Coates’s “question of his validity as a ruler, the question of whether what he’s doing is right or wrong.” Once again anchoring Black Panther in real-world political counterparts, Boseman adds, “You may have a president or a prime minister or a ruler who might be doing the best they can, and the people don’t necessarily know all of the information, and so despite the fact that they have the best intentions, they’re going to be ridiculed. We live in a world where people can ridicule you at the push of the button. They can question you at the push of a button.”

But Boseman also says that Coates’s fierce depiction of the women of Wakanda (to be expanded on in an upcoming spin-off from authors Roxane Gay and Yona Harvey) informs what we can expect from Nyong’o and Gurira. “The women are strong,” Boseman says in reference to T’Challa’s female bodyguards, the Dora Milaje. “The women are strong characters. They have a point of view and their own political interests.”

Whether fair or not, Marvel has gained a reputation for stifling some of the creativity of its directors in favor of the larger, homogenous Avengers story. But for those worried how Coogler—who made a splashy entrée into Hollywood with the grounded realism of films like Fruitvale Station and Creed—will translate to the high-flying world of superheroes, Boseman has some calming insight. Calling Coogler’s approach “cerebral” and “methodical,” Boseman says, “He brings the independent filmmaker to a big-budget movie, and that brings a certain amount of grit and reality to something that is fantasy.” And for a character like Black Panther, who has his roots in Mandela and Kenyatta, that sounds like the perfect fit.

You can see more of Boseman’s Black Panther in deleted scenes and special features of the Captain America: Civil War Blu-ray, now available for purchase.